Centralism

Centralism is a political doctrine that advocates political or administrative centralization. That is, centralism promotes a political system in which the central government brings together most of the powers and faculties to direct the nation. Therefore, the State assumes powers over the federated states or administrative divisions in this form of government, normally enacting a unitary State.

A totally centralized state is one in which there is a political, territorial and administrative unit; In other words, the central government symmetrically has greater power to make political decisions and is in charge of the administrative management of all the powers of the country. This form of government is very rare, being applied in its pure form almost exclusively in microstates. However, there are other less pure forms of centralist government that are applied, for example, in France - where there is administrative decentralization - and in some Latin American countries - in which there is a central government that coexists with subnational governments with certain powers.

Among the reasons for this centralization we can count:

• The need of states to provide services to their citizens that economically the federated territories alone cannot for lack of funds.
• The need for large amounts of investments that require a large percentage of resources, economic and human materials that would collapse the federated territories.
• The need for administrative central planning. No probable cause

Types of centralism

There are three kinds of centralism:

• Pure centralism: it occurs in the politically and administratively centralized unitary states, also called centralist states. The centralist State is based on the fact that the central administrative body conducts the exercise of all competencies exclusively and in full. Example: Monaco.

• Centralism with administrative decentralization: it occurs in the politically centralized and administratively decentralized unitary States. This form of State is based on the delegation of competencies, whose title remains the delegate organ, from the central administrative body to other hierarchically dependents. Examples: Chile, Denmark, France, Peru and Sweden.
• Centralism with political and administrative decentralizationIt is given both in the unitary states with limited political decentralization and in the unitary or centralized federal states. The only distinguishing feature between both forms of State is the unicamerality of the politically decentralized unitary State—e.g. Croatia and Venezuela—and the bicamerality of the unitary federal state—e.g. Austria, Mexico and India—. The unitary federalism, which was conceptualized by Konrad Hesse, is based on the trend towards the political centralization of cooperative federalism.

Powers it confers

• Appointment: principally attributed to the head of the higher body to designate its collaborators discretionaryly.
• Removal: the power of appointment is distinguished by the power of removal that the former brings, in whose exercise the President of the Republic can decide and cease the work of his collaborators.
• Command: faculty of the person who is at a higher level (exercise) to direct and promote the activity of the subordinates through verbal or written orders or instructions.
• Decision: In the exercise of the decision-making power, the superior may choose between several resolution alternatives and, therefore, choose the one that in his opinion is the most appropriate one, which will have to be followed by the lower one.
• Monitoring: it has the power to inspect, as well as to monitor the performance of its subordinates, which allows it to detect when the latter fails to comply with the orders and decisions of the superior, as well as to know whether or not they are complying with their obligations under the regulations in force and, in addition, to determine administrative, civil or criminal responsibilities, including for non-compliance.
• Discipline: is the power to repress or even administratively sanction their subordinates for actions or omissions carried out unduly or irregularly during their work, to the detriment of the public administration, the individuals or both, allowing the superior body to punish both the absolute non-compliance and also the poor or insufficient performance of the responsibilities of the public servants performing in its lower bodies.
• Review: It consists of the authority, assigned to the holder of the superior body, to review the performance of the lower body and, if deemed relevant, to suspend, modify, annul or confirm its acts or resolutions, without this means substitution of the superior in the performance of the tasks of the lower one, but only to review the act or resolution of the latter, ex officio or at the request of the legal party, for confirmation or modification and, in the latter case, to compel the lesserate the person to comply with the performance.
• Resolving conflicts of competence: consisting of its attribution granted to specify which of the lower organs is competent to know of a certain matter in which several or none of them intend to be.